A Wisconsin reference in the long-awaited Mueller report provides a glimpse into why Russians trying to help President Donald Trump win the 2016 election may have targeted the state.

Wisconsin and other Midwestern battleground states were discussed during an election briefing former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort gave to Konstantin Kilimnik, a business associate with ties to Russian intelligence, the report says.

"That briefing encompassed the campaign's messaging and its internal polling data," the report says. "It also included discussion of 'battleground' states, which Manafort identified as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Minnesota."

The report, which was released Thursday, found members of Trump's campaign showed interest in benefiting from Russian government efforts to sway the 2016 presidential election in his favor, but investigators did not find evidence that their conduct amounted to a crime.

The investigation provided a trove of new details describing a president and his associates on the cusp of violating the law in their attempts to benefit from the Kremlin's activities, and in trying to thwart the inquiries that followed.

And in dramatic and profane language, the report showed Trump believed the probe would end his presidency.

Investigators found that some of Trump’s aides engaged in contacts with people linked to the Russian regime as the Kremlin was carrying out a wide-ranging effort to intervene in the election using hacked documents and phony social media campaigns, carried out because the Russian government believed it would benefit from Trump winning the election.